BP Deny CNBC Viewers Access to AGM

Thursday, 14 Apr 2011 | 6:20 AM ETCNBC.com

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2010 was hardly a great year for the comms team at BP, so with the appointment of Peter Henshaw as new Director of Communications this February, after a successful stint at BG, hopes have been high for a fresh change of direction.

Ben Stansall | AFP | Getty Images

BP sign

His first test has been the Rosneft deal, on which the company has been given an 11th hour reprieve or another 4 weeks to find resolution with its TNK joint venture partners.

The 2nd test is today's AGM, and from CNBC's perspective there's still much work for Peter to do.

All week, my producer has been arguing for access to the venue, the Excel Centre. Although I am allowed to go into the meeting, my camera crew is banned, not only from the area outside the meeting, but also from being anywhere on the Excel concourse.

This ban applies not only to our camera crew but also to our satellite truck for live broadcast which has been refused permission to operate from any area owned by Excel, which includes, as we have discovered, all the parking lots of the hotels within the locale.

BP have defended this by saying it's Excel's decision, fine except that over the last decade I and CNBC have filmed here dozens of times for conferences, olympic meetings, G20 heads of state, car shows, boat shows, golf shows, in fact just about everything except a BP AGM.